IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version New Features Guide

Transcription

1 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version New Features Guide

2 Note Before using this information and the product it supports, read the information in Notices on page 21. Product Information This document applies to IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version and may also apply to subsequent releases. Licensed Materials - Property of IBM Copyright IBM Corporation 2005, US Government Users Restricted Rights Use, duplication or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corp.

3 Contents Introduction v Chapter 1. Analytics that everyone can use to answer key business questions IBM Cognos family Cognos Business Insight and Cognos Business Insight Advanced are renamed Enhancements to Cognos Workspace Filtering on multiple related data items in select value filter and slider filter widgets Automatically refresh filter values in slider and select value controls Automatic chart recommendation Tabbed workspaces Global area in tabbed workspaces Chart interaction Freeze column and row headings Viewing column and row heading details Printing a workspace Enhancements to Cognos Workspace Advanced Expanded text-based filtering Simplified custom grouping Sharing sets between reports Showing values as percentages Improved searching using "ends with" Enhanced crosstab headers Automatic group and summary behavior for lists Copy data with number formatting Enhancements to Report Studio Extensible visualizations Microsoft Excel export formatting options Improved IBM Cognos Active Report integration with IBM Cognos Workspace Interactive repeater tables Inherited table styles in lists and crosstabs Writing query macros in the expression editor Prompt API Global classes for accessible reports Enhancements to Lifecycle Manager My Folders support Ability to delete Lifecycle Manager projects Enhancements to IBM Cognos Mobile User interface enhancements Automatic configuration Faster mobile reports High-fidelity reports Zooming on active reports Apple push notifications Burst reports to Cognos Mobile Improved search with field-level search capability Chapter 2. Collaborative business intelligence and workflow Controlled access to Cognos Workspace functions and features Controlled access to Cognos Mobile Chapter 3. Platform enhancements to simplify and cost-effectively scale enterprise analytics IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes Secure dimensions and attributes Support for customer-defined database security tables Copyright IBM Corp. 2005, 2013 iii

4 Support for First, Last, and Current Period aggregation rules Usability enhancements for Cube Designer Enhanced administration capabilities Multiple tenant environments Multitenancy Administration tab in IBM Cognos Administration Optional archive of public content Tenant removal Default account profiles for tenants Tenant lockout User session cancellation Content store usage reports Tenant on-boarding Improved performance and scalability bit IBM Cognos gateway bit IBM Cognos gateway as default in 64-bit installations bit Data Manager engine Archiving content External object store for report archiving Ability to set content archiving for My Folders Granular deployment of My Folders Enhanced language and currency support Support for Extended Japanese and Chinese characters Server setting to specify rounding rule for data formatting Improved support for data items with more than 15 digits of precision Save as Microsoft Excel 2007 data Access to ERP data sources DQM server logging on a report basis Predefined LDAP configurations Enhancements to supported environments Notices Index iv IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

5 Introduction IBM Cognos Business Intelligence enables companies to outperform by giving business users the freedom they need to make smarter decisions. This release also offers platform enhancements that help IT deliver enterprise-scale analytics. This document provides an organized view of the new features of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence. For more information about new and changed features, see the specific product documents such as installation guides and user guides. Audience This guide is for information technology administrators, data modelers, report authors, and users of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence. To use this guide effectively, you should be familiar with one or more of the following items, depending on your role in your organization: v IBM Cognos Business Intelligence and its components v The existing server environment and security infrastructure in your organization v The business requirements of your company v The business intelligence environment of your company v Database and data warehouse concepts v Security concepts Finding information To find IBM Cognos product documentation on the web, including all translated documentation, access one of the IBM Cognos Information Centers ( Release Notes are published directly to Information Centers, and include links to the latest technotes and APARs. You can also read PDF versions of the product release notes and installation guides directly from IBM Cognos product disks. Accessibility Features Accessibility features help users who have a physical disability, such as restricted mobility or limited vision, to use information technology products. This product has accessibility features. Forward-looking statements This documentation describes the current functionality of the product. References to items that are not currently available may be included. No implication of any future availability should be inferred. Any such references are not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality. The development, release, and timing of features or functionality remain at the sole discretion of IBM. Copyright IBM Corp. 2005, 2013 v

6 Samples disclaimer The Sample Outdoors Company, Great Outdoors Company, GO Sales, any variation of the Sample Outdoors or Great Outdoors names, and Planning Sample depict fictitious business operations with sample data used to develop sample applications for IBM and IBM customers. These fictitious records include sample data for sales transactions, product distribution, finance, and human resources. Any resemblance to actual names, addresses, contact numbers, or transaction values is coincidental. Other sample files may contain fictional data manually or machine generated, factual data compiled from academic or public sources, or data used with permission of the copyright holder, for use as sample data to develop sample applications. Product names referenced may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. vi IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

7 Chapter 1. Analytics that everyone can use to answer key business questions IBM Cognos family Organizations need to make the most of a workforce that is increasingly driven to multi-task, network, and collaborate. IBM Cognos Business Intelligence delivers analytics that everyone can use to answer key business questions. Easily view, assemble, and personalize information Business users often do not know how to access the information that they need, and the available tools might not provide the freedom to combine and explore information in the way they want. IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides features that allow business users to easily view, assemble, and personalize information to follow a train of thought and generate a unique perspective. Using a single place to quickly see a view of their business, users can quickly personalize content, build on the insights of others, and incorporate data from various sources. These capabilities ensure that more people are engaged in providing unique insights and delivering faster business decisions. Giving business users greater self-service control reduces demands on IT and business intelligence systems. Explore all types of information If a separate tool is required, it is difficult to incorporate statistical results with core business reporting. IBM Cognos BI allows business users to consume fact-based statistical evidence to support key decisions directly in the IBM Cognos BI environment. The ability to explore all types of information from all angles to assess the current business situation provides a deeper understanding of the patterns that exist in data. This allows business users to quickly deliver reports that include statistical insight and validation, and distribute these reports to the larger business community. Analyze facts and anticipate strategic implications Business users need tools that let them accurately evaluate and identify the impact that different scenarios will have on the business and on the bottom line. IBM Cognos BI allows the business user to analyze facts and anticipate strategic implications by simply shifting from viewing data to performing more advanced predictive or what-if analysis. Understanding the scenarios that affect business enables the business user to make informed recommendations to the business and provides an increased competitive advantage. The IBM Cognos family of products includes IBM Cognos Insight, IBM Cognos Express, and IBM Cognos Enterprise. IBM Cognos Enterprise can be IBM Cognos TM1, IBM Cognos Business Intelligence, or both. The IBM Cognos family of products provides integrated solutions that are the right size for your organization. The solutions are scalable and deployable in different sized environments, from a desktop to a single server to a server farm. Because the solutions share a common foundation, you can start with a limited solution that Copyright IBM Corp. 2005,

8 addresses an immediate need, and then expand your solution over time. For example, you might expand your solution in the following way: v v v Start by using IBM Cognos Insight for data discovery, visualization, and planning. Add a server that uses IBM Cognos Express to share the insights that your users acquire. Create additional analytics to help with planning, analysis, and reporting from large data sets. As your user community grows or your analytic requirements change, expand your capabilities by using IBM Cognos Enterprise (IBM Cognos TM1 and IBM Cognos Business Intelligence). From a server you can remotely install Cognos Insight on desktops across your organization. You can acquire insights from real-time corporate information and collaborate with members of your organization through mobile devices. The following table provides a comparison of products in the IBM Cognos family. Table 1. Comparison of the key capabilities of Cognos Insight, Cognos Express, and Cognos Enterprise Key capabilities Cognos Insight Cognos Express Cognos Enterprise Dashboards X X X Analysis X X X What-if scenario modeling Planning and budgeting X X X X X X Production reports X X Microsoft Office integration Support for Apple ipad Support for other mobile devices Enterprise-wide collaboration Software Development Kit X X X X X X X The Cognos family addresses the business intelligence and performance management needs of the following entities: v v v Individuals who require personal, desktop analytics can meet their needs with Cognos Insight. Midsize organizations or workgroups within larger organizations can meet their needs for integrated reporting, analysis, and planning by using Cognos Express. Large enterprises that need to deploy analytics capabilities to hundreds or thousands of people can meet their needs with Cognos Enterprise. 2 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

9 Cognos Business Insight and Cognos Business Insight Advanced are renamed Two product components are renamed in this release to avoid confusion with the names of other components. IBM Cognos Business Insight is now IBM Cognos Workspace. IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced is now IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced. Enhancements to Cognos Workspace IBM Cognos Workspace (formerly named IBM Cognos Business Insight) has several enhancements to improve the user experience. For more information about Cognos Workspace, see the IBM Cognos Workspace User Guide. Filtering on multiple related data items in select value filter and slider filter widgets In select value filter and slider filter widgets, you can filter on multiple related data items from different reports. For example, you have a report on your workspace that has a Years data item and another report that has a Years_1 data item, but both refer to the same data. You can filter on both data items together. Automatically refresh filter values in slider and select value controls In previous versions, values in slider filter and select value filter widgets were not refreshed when data was refreshed in their corresponding source report widgets. Now you can automatically refresh values in slider filter and select value filter widgets whenever data is refreshed in their corresponding source report widgets. This is especially convenient for source report widgets that are updated frequently. Automatic chart recommendation In the widget toolbar, you can click Change Display Type to automatically get the best display type for the data. IBM Cognos Workspace analyses the data and produces the most suitable display type. The Change Display Type drop-down list in the widget toolbar lists up to five of the most highly recommended display types. The Change Display window lists the recommended display types in order and explains why each one is recommended. To see the original interface, which lists all available display types whether they are recommended or not, click the All tab in the Change Display window. Chapter 1. Analytics that everyone can use to answer key business questions 3

10 Tabbed workspaces With tabbed workspaces, you can organize content on multiple tabs in a single workspace. Typically, each tab contains information about a particular area. For example, you create a workspace with separate tabs for Marketing, Sales, and Revenue. Global area in tabbed workspaces A tabbed workspace includes an area that is common to all tabs in the workspace. Here you can keep any object in view as you click though the tabs in the workspace. For example, you created a workspace with separate tabs for Marketing, Sales, and Revenue. You add a Region filter to the global area so that you can filter on regions as you click through the tabs. Chart interaction You can select a chart or one or more parts of a chart and apply actions. For example, you can filter the chart contents. Freeze column and row headings You can freeze column and row headings in lists and crosstabs. Freezing the headings keeps them in view as you scroll through the data. Viewing column and row heading details In a crosstab, you can expand a column or row heading to view the details that make up the data. For example, you expand a region heading to display the cities in that region. Printing a workspace The print preview feature in a web browser enables you to adjust settings such as scaling and orientation to make your workspace fit on a printed page. Enhancements to Cognos Workspace Advanced IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced (formerly named IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced) has several enhancements to improve the user experience. For more information about Cognos Workspace Advanced, see the IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced User Guide. Expanded text-based filtering You can define dynamic filters based on text patterns appearing in the values to be filtered. In addition to selecting specific values, you can enter filter options which include "Starts with", "Ends with", "Contains" and "Matches SQL Pattern". 4 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

11 Simplified custom grouping In addition to using the Custom Grouping dialog box to create custom groups, now you can create, edit, combine, and remove custom groups by using the right-click context menu. Sharing sets between reports When you work with dimensional data, you can designate a set as shared. Shared sets appear in the model tree for inclusion in other reports that are created by you or by other IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced users. Shared sets can be designated with Run Time or Design Time inclusion. If Run Time is selected, the report uses the shared set as it was defined. If Design Time is selected, the report caches the contents of the shared set as it was defined and uses this definition until it is refreshed by the report author. Showing values as percentages When you work with dimensional data in a crosstab, you can display values as a percentage of the total. You can specify whether to show the values as a percentage of the total for rows, columns, or both. Improved searching using "ends with" You can search on items that end with a particular string. This search criterion can be used when creating filter conditions, defining custom groups, searching the metadata tree, locating items in the expression editor, creating intersections, or creating Top/Bottom or Set Filter conditions. Enhanced crosstab headers In crosstabs, you can display headers that indicate the parent categories of the data items in the columns and rows. The headers help users to understand where the data is located in the hierarchy. Automatic group and summary behavior for lists You can enable or disable the automatic generation of summaries for lists. When enabled, grouped columns appear first in the list. Copy data with number formatting In IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced, you can copy data from a list or crosstab and paste it into a Microsoft Excel 2007 spreadsheet, while maintaining number formatting. This is a convenient way to quickly export your analysis. Chapter 1. Analytics that everyone can use to answer key business questions 5

12 Enhancements to Report Studio Report Studio and Active Report have several enhancements to improve the user experience. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Report Studio User Guide. Extensible visualizations With extensible visualizations, you can use new and innovative visualizations in active reports. This feature makes use of IBM Rapidly Adaptive Visualization Engine (RAVE) to introduce new visualizations such as treemaps, heatmaps, and network diagrams. Extensible visualization provides new charts and more-interactive versions of existing charts. It also introduces improved animation with charting. Report authors benefit from an improved authoring experience when they incorporate RAVE visualizations. You can copy sample visualizations to a gallery that is accessible from the Active Report authoring environment. New visualization types might become available over time. You can download and use new visualization types in your environment. You can also engage IBM to produce custom visualizations that are specific to your business needs. Microsoft Excel export formatting options When exporting to Microsoft Excel from IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced or Report Studio, you can choose whether repeating crosstab cells or grouped list columns will be grouped upon export, or whether the values will be repeated for each row or column. Improved IBM Cognos Active Report integration with IBM Cognos Workspace You can use check boxes and sliders in workspaces in IBM Cognos Workspace to control IBM Cognos Active Report. You can define public variables and range variables in Cognos Active Report that allow Cognos Workspace check boxes and sliders to control active reports in a workspace. Interactive repeater tables You can add interactive behavior to repeater tables in IBM Cognos Active Report. Adding interactive behavior to repeater tables is useful for creating button bars and grids of custom content. For example, you can insert a data item in a repeater table that shows a different chart for each data value. You can customize the repeater table so that the data values appear as buttons in a two-column grid. 6 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

13 Inherited table styles in lists and crosstabs When an item is inserted in a list or crosstab, the item inherits the table style of one of the items in the data container. By default, items inherit the style of an item of the same type. For example, if you insert a measure in a list, the measure inherits the style of a measure that is in the list, if one exists. Inheritance rules control which style is inherited. Writing query macros in the expression editor You can use the expression editor to write macros in query expressions. The macro syntax is the same as in previous releases and IBM Cognos Framework Manager. Prompt API With the prompt API, report authors can write JavaScript applications to customize the standard prompt functionality available in IBM Cognos Report Studio. The prompt API can query and set user selections, validate typed-in values using patterns, set default values using expressions or query data, and more. Sample reports exist to demonstrate various usage scenarios of the prompt API. Global classes for accessible reports New global classes that you can apply to text objects were added to IBM Cognos Report Studio. The new classes make text easier to read for visually impaired users. The new global classes are as follows: v Heading 1 to heading 6 v Emphasize text v Strong text Enhancements to Lifecycle Manager Lifecycle Manager has several enhancements to improve the user experience. For more information about Lifecycle Manager, see the IBM Cognos Lifecycle Manager User Guide. My Folders support In addition to accessing Public Folders content, Lifecycle Manager enables you to select some or all of your personal My Folders content for validation or benchmarking projects. In open projects, you can access My Folders content that belongs to the authenticated user. Ability to delete Lifecycle Manager projects You can use the New Project window or the Open Project window to delete projects. This enables you to remove unneeded projects conveniently, without requiring access permission to the Lifecycle Manager installation location. Enhancements to IBM Cognos Mobile IBM Cognos Mobile has several enhancements to improve the user experience. Chapter 1. Analytics that everyone can use to answer key business questions 7

14 For more information about IBM Cognos Mobile, see the IBM Cognos Mobile Installation and Administration Guide. User interface enhancements With the new IBM Cognos Mobile interface, you can navigate BI content in a more visual way. In addition to other features, you can sort your local content and pause and restart report downloads. Automatic configuration ipad users can tap on a web location (URL) to automatically configure the IBM Cognos Mobile application to connect to the BI server. This greatly simplifies configuration by eliminating the need to type long URLs and choose configuration settings. Faster mobile reports Multi-page reports that are manually executed are retrieved and presented one page at a time, rather than all at once. This reduces peak server loads and also enables IBM Cognos Mobile users to open and interact with large reports quickly, without waiting for the entire report to download. Users can swipe the screen or tap a button to retrieve the remaining pages in the report, up to the maximum number of pages, as defined by the mobile administrator. The behavior of scheduled reports remains unchanged. High-fidelity reports IBM Cognos Mobile has enhanced its support for HTML reports on mobile devices. The enhancements include: v Rendering of additional fonts v Page layout v Prompt controls v Drill-through actions v Saved html output The capabilities for IBM Cognos Workspace on mobile devices and the drill-through actions between active reports and regular reports remain unchanged from the previous release. 8 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

15 Zooming on active reports When viewing versions of active reports on Apple ios devices, users can zoom in and out using the standard pinch gesture. Apple push notifications You can now use Apple push notifications to notify the users of the IBM Cognos Mobile native ipad application about the availability of new IBM Cognos Business Intelligence reports. The supported notifications include badges and text alerts. Sounds are not supported. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Mobile Installation and Administration Guide. Burst reports to Cognos Mobile Reports can now be distributed to IBM Cognos Mobile users by bursting. Users receive burst reports in the language specified in their preferences in IBM Cognos Connection. If the report is not burst in the language specified by the user's preference in Cognos Connection, the user receives the report in the server default language. Users can also receive multiple versions of burst reports, with the burst key appended to the report name. For example, a sales manager who is responsible for multiple regions receives the burst report for each region. For more information about burst reports, see the IBM Cognos Report Studio User Guide and the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration and Security Guide. Improved search with field-level search capability IBM Cognos Connection search delivers more relevant results, faster. It also offers greater control, enabling you to search by a specific field. For example, entering "+name:product" searches for the term "product" in the "name" field. Chapter 1. Analytics that everyone can use to answer key business questions 9

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17 Chapter 2. Collaborative business intelligence and workflow Organizations need agile and responsive decision making processes to effectively respond to market opportunities and challenges. IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides tools that support collaborative business intelligence and workflow allowing businesses to share insights and gain alignment. Establish decision networks Teams that do not share insights or solicit input from colleagues limit their ability to make informed decisions. By connecting people to information and other people, IBM Cognos BI helps teams to establish dynamic decision networks and expand their collective intelligence. Efficient decision networks reduce the time, expense, and resources required to gather information. Provide transparency and accountability Business users must understand and trust the data that they use to make business decisions. Business users need to understand what has happened to data from source to report. IBM Cognos BI features ensure that all user communities have the same understanding of data, providing transparency and accountability to drive alignment and consensus. When users understand and are confident about the information they use, IT spends less time dealing with questions about data. Communicate and coordinate tasks Actionable insights are often lost because it is not easy to capture the insight as a task. IBM Cognos BI provides the tools that teams need to communicate and coordinate tasks to engage the right people at the right time. Any member of a team can initiate a task and assign activities to the appropriate team member. The team can track activities from creation to closure to ensure better business outcomes. Controlled access to Cognos Workspace functions and features As an administrator, you can control the access of users to IBM Cognos Workspace functions and features at a granular level. Based on the capabilities that you grant for them, users can have the following types of workspace permissions: v v v View and print workspaces, drill up and down on the workspace data, add comments, and use slider filters and select value filters if they are available in the workspace. Interact with the widget data through the widget toolbar that provides options such as sorting, deleting, swapping rows and columns, and changing the report display type. Access all functions and features in Business Insight and perform any task, including changing the workspace layout and style, and adding and deleting workspaces. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Workspace User Guide and the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration and Security Guide. Copyright IBM Corp. 2005,

18 Controlled access to Cognos Mobile As an administrator, you can control the access of users to IBM Cognos Mobile, using the Mobile secured function. Only users who are granted access to this secured function can access the IBM Cognos content through IBM Cognos Mobile. A new role named Mobile Users was added to the predefined roles in the Cognos namespace in IBM Cognos Administration to help with setting up access permissions for the Mobile secured function. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration and Security Guide. 12 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

19 Chapter 3. Platform enhancements to simplify and cost-effectively scale enterprise analytics IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes Organizations need agile and responsive decision making processes to effectively respond to market opportunities and challenges. IBM Cognos Business Intelligence delivers advances for IT to simplify and cost-effectively deliver enterprise-scale analytics. Accelerated model design with guided workflow driven modeling Many organizations find that it takes too much time and too many iterations for IT to build the right models. IBM Cognos BI provides guided workflow driven modeling that is based on established best practices. A workflow driven modeling process reduces the amount of time required to deliver the right model. Optimized performance with in-memory processing It is sometimes difficult to meet performance expectations because of complex processing requirements and related overhead on systems. In IBM Cognos BI, in-memory processing on 64-bit systems delivers optimized query generation with pattern intelligence, security-aware caching for query plan and query, and on-demand data and metadata caching for executed reports. These features help to deliver faster results and increased business satisfaction. Streamlined life cycle management with the ability to seamlessly upgrade The increasing scale of upgrade projects creates a challenge for IT. IBM Cognos BI reduces the complexity and risks of an upgrade by providing greater control over the upgrade process. IT can now use a staged upgrade approach to quickly deliver on new business requirements and manage costs. Other features make it easier for IT to track the application life cycle and validate content in a variety of environments before an upgrade. IBM Cognos Business Intelligence includes Dynamic Cubes, which is a query technology that lets you perform ad-hoc analysis over large volumes of data (greater than 1TB) with fast performance and low latency. This relational online analytical processing (ROLAP) technology takes advantage of in-memory and database aggregates to reduce data movement and computation, and improve responsiveness. The Dynamic Cubes server includes self-analysis capabilities to further improve performance by recommending changes or additions to available aggregates, based on observed queries. To take advantage of Dynamic Cubes, IBM Cognos BI includes the Dynamic Cubes server, a modelling interface called IBM Cognos Cube Designer where you can design your cubes, as well as an Aggregate Advisor that suggests improvements to available aggregates. Copyright IBM Corp. 2005,

20 For more information about IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes, see the IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes User Guide. Secure dimensions and attributes With IBM Cognos Cube Designer, you can apply security at a more granular level. In addition to securing hierarchies or levels, you can secure individual dimensions or attributes. For example, for confidentiality purposes, you secure the Salary attribute in an Employee dimension. If the rest of the model was not significantly changed, you can reload access permissions and clear cached security information while the cube is still running. Support for customer-defined database security tables By taking advantage of existing security tables in your reporting database, IBM Cognos Cube Designer can greatly simplify the process of defining security filters and views for Dynamic Cubes. Support for First, Last, and Current Period aggregation rules IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes supports First, Last, and Current Period aggregation rules. These rules are widely used in the retail, warehousing, financial services, and banking industries. The addition of these rules aligns IBM Cognos Dynamic Cubes with other IBM Cognos products, including PowerPlay Transformer. Usability enhancements for Cube Designer The auto-design feature of IBM Cognos Cube Designer has improved hierarchy detection for results that are more reflective of the data. In addition, the model validation capability includes performance indicators to help identify potential performance problems in the Dynamic Cube model. Enhanced administration capabilities With the Dynamic Cubes administration console, you can deploy, configure, and manage Dynamic Cubes across multiple report servers from a single user interface. This is especially convenient, for example, when Dynamic Cubes are mirrored across multiple report servers for load balancing purposes or to achieve a high level of availability. 14 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

21 Multiple tenant environments Multiple tenant environments support multiple customers or organizations (tenants) by using a single deployment of an application, while ensuring that each tenant can access only the data that it is authorized to use. IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides built-in multitenancy capabilities. Before you can use IBM Cognos multitenancy, you must modify configuration files in your IBM Cognos Business Intelligence installation. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Installation and Configuration Guide and IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration and Security Guide. Multitenancy Administration tab in IBM Cognos Administration In IBM Cognos Administration, administrators can use the Multitenancy Administration tab to manage all aspects of multiple tenant environments. Optional archive of public content Administrators of multiple tenant environments can select all objects that belong to a tenant and export them to a Cognos BI deployment archive. Administrators now have the option to include public content (that does not belong exclusively to the tenant) in the same deployment archive. This enables administrators to more easily move an entire application from one Cognos BI environment to another. Tenant removal System Administrators can remove a tenant and all associated BI objects from a Cognos BI environment. Default account profiles for tenants Account profiles are used to customize the user experience within Cognos BI. System Administrators can define default account profiles that are unique to each tenant's requirements. Tenant lockout When maintaining multiple tenant environments, it is sometimes necessary to prevent tenant users from accessing and modifying BI content. System Administrators can disable access to a Cognos BI application for a tenant. No user that belongs to the disabled tenant ID can access the BI application. Chapter 3. Platform enhancements to simplify and cost-effectively scale enterprise analytics 15

22 User session cancellation System administrators can cancel all active user sessions of a tenant from a Cognos BI application, without impacting application availability for other users on the system. Content store usage reports Service providers for multiple tenant applications need to understand how individual tenants use Cognos BI. System administrators can easily export Cognos BI content store usage data to understand the number of BI objects that are associated with a tenant and the size of the objects that are stored in the Cognos BI content store. Tenant on-boarding System administrators can easily manage the creation configuration of tenants who can access the Cognos BI application. This enables service providers and owners of multiple tenant environments to control access without complex security configurations. Improved performance and scalability 64-bit IBM Cognos gateway This release optimizes resource utilization and improves performance for increased scalability and user satisfaction. You will notice performance improvements to mobile, batch reporting, report rendering, active reports, dynamic cubes, bursting, and dynamic query. The IBM Cognos BI gateway provides 64-bit libraries that you can use. When you configure the web server to view static IBM Cognos content, additional configuration is required before you can use the 64-bit libraries. For more information about the 64-bit gateway, see the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Installation and Configuration Guide. 64-bit IBM Cognos gateway as default in 64-bit installations In earlier versions, if you installed the 64-bit versions of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence, the 32-bit version of the gateway components were the default versions. If you wanted to use the 64-bit version of the gateway, you had to manually move the 64-bit gateway files. 16 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

23 64-bit Data Manager engine Archiving content The 64-bit version of the gateway is now the default for all 64-bit installations. The 32-bit version of the gateway is the default for 32-bit installations. You can use the 64-bit Data Manager engine to take advantage of additional memory available in 64-bit computer environments. This greatly increases the amount of data that can be loaded. It also reduces the need for memory management techniques, resulting in potential performance gains. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Data Manager User Guide. With IBM Cognos Content Archival, you can archive report specifications and saved report outputs to an archival repository or to the file system. This allows you to adhere to regulatory compliance requirements and reduces the amount of content in the content store. You can view archived content from IBM Cognos Connection and search archived content using indexed search. Previously, you could archive only to IBM FileNet Content Manager, using the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification. Now, you can archive to: v IBM Content Manager version 8 (new for version ) v the operating system file system For more information, see the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration and Security Guide. External object store for report archiving You can configure the Content Manager to store report output to a local drive or network share instead of in the content store database by configuring an external object store. An external object store offers improved read and write performance by reducing the load on the Content Manager. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration and Security Guide. Ability to set content archiving for My Folders You can set content archiving for users' My Folders by adding repository connections to namespaces and namespace folders. Archiving the content of your users' My Folders in your external repository helps you to adhere to regulatory compliance requirements, and can enhance the scalability and performance of IBM Cognos products by reducing the size of content in the content store. Chapter 3. Platform enhancements to simplify and cost-effectively scale enterprise analytics 17

24 To archive existing My Folders content, you add a repository connection to a namespace or namespace folder and then select My Folders in the content archival task. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration and Security Guide. Granular deployment of My Folders You can back up and deploy individual users' My Folder content without the need for a full content store deployment. The ability to back up and deploy individual users' My Folder content is especially convenient in the following scenarios: v v Staged moves or upgrades, in which specific users or applications are moved or upgraded to a new environment. Restoration of an individual user's account. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration and Security Guide. Enhanced language and currency support IBM Cognos Business Intelligence supports an expanded list of content languages, more currencies, plus additional product languages such as Catalan, Croatian, Kazakh, Slovenian, and Thai (new for version ). There is also enhanced support for bidirectional languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu, and Farsi. Report authors can control the display of native digits and the direction of text, crosstabs, and charts. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Administration and Security Guide, the IBM Cognos Connection User Guide, the IBM Cognos Workspace User Guide, the IBM Cognos Workspace Advanced User Guide, and the IBM Cognos Report Studio User Guide. Support for Extended Japanese and Chinese characters IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides improved support for Japanese and Chinese ideographs in Unicode Supplementary Plane 2. Server setting to specify rounding rule for data formatting In previous versions, IBM Cognos Business Intelligence used the round half to even rule when rounding numbers. The round half to even rule is widely used in bookkeeping. However, precision regulations in some regions require different rounding rules (for example, the round half up rule). With IBM Cognos Business Intelligence, you can now choose a rounding rule to comply with the precision regulations that apply to you. The following table describes the rounding rules that are available in IBM Cognos Business Intelligence. 18 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

25 Table 2. IBM Cognos BI rounding rules and descriptions Rule halfeven halfdown halfup ceiling floor down up Description Round to nearest neighbor, where an equidistant value is rounded to the nearest even neighbor. This is the default rule. Round to nearest neighbor, where an equidistant value is rounded down. Round to nearest neighbor, where an equidistant value is rounded up. Round to a more positive number. Round to a more negative number. Round towards zero. Round away from zero. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Administration and Security Guide. Improved support for data items with more than 15 digits of precision Previous versions of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence were unable to support data items with more than 15 digits of precision. Up to 32 digits of precision are now supported in the dynamic query mode. Save as Microsoft Excel 2007 data Access to ERP data sources The Excel 2007 Data report output format enables you to generate native Microsoft Excel 2007 spreadsheets containing list report data for further manipulation. This format is similar to a comma separated values file (.csv). It has no formatting such as headers, footers, styling, or data formatting. For more information, see the IBM Cognos Report Studio User Guide. You can now directly access data sources from various ERP vendors using the dynamic query mode. Support has been added for the following data sources: v Salesforce.com v SAP ECC v Siebel For more information, see the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Dynamic Query Guide. DQM server logging on a report basis You can enable server logging for the dynamic query mode in IBM Cognos Dynamic Query Analyzer. Server logs are generated only for reports that are run in Dynamic Query Analyzer. Previously, trace logging had to be enabled for all reports run on the IBM Cognos Business Intelligence server. Chapter 3. Platform enhancements to simplify and cost-effectively scale enterprise analytics 19

26 For more information, see the IBM Cognos Dynamic Query Analyzer User Guide. Predefined LDAP configurations In IBM Cognos Configuration, you can configure your environment by selecting from a number of predefined LDAP authentication namespace configurations. The following is a list of predefined LDAP configurations: v LDAP - Active Directory v LDAP - IBM Tivoli v LDAP - OracleSunOne Enhancements to supported environments IBM Cognos Business Intelligence provides enhanced support for environments. To review an up-to-date list of environments that are supported by IBM Cognos Business Intelligence products, including information on operating systems, patches, browsers, web servers, directory servers, database servers, and application servers, see the IBM Software Compatibility reports ( support/docview.wss?uid=swg ). 20 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence Version : New Features Guide

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